Entries for November 2009

I've decided that I have to be better at releasing things. I have several completed enhancements for PainlessSVN, but I have held back, because I wanted a lot of other ones to be done. No more. I will release a new version, when I do a bug fix or a single feature is completed and tested.

Proposed Roadmap:

PainlessSVN 1.1

• Automatic Subversion server discovery
• Automatic PainlessSVN configuration, if server is found in above step
• Configuration wizard
• More information on objects selected in treeview, on the contents pane
• Status of svnserve Windows service, if any is found

These enhancements are done and have been sitting in my repository for a couple months. Just need to get this packaged for release. This will be done very soon, as soon as I get all of my release tools configured.

PainlessSVN 1.2

• PainlessSVN Solo (Standard) released
• Start and Stop Windows service for svnserve
• The ability to create a Windows service for svnserve, if none is found

This code is also already written, and sitting in my repository. I still need setup the release bits for PainlessSVN Solo.

PainlessSVN 1.3

• Repository grouping by Realms
• Path-based security

These are about 50% done. The other 50% is for actually editing the Realms' information and configuring the path-based security. I haven't decided if I want to tackle drag-n-drop in this release yet, as I want to just put out what I already have coded.

PainlessSVN 1.4

• Import of dump files

This code is done, but needs an UI. That will take some time to get right.

PainlessSVN 1.4+

This is code that I haven't written yet, but here is some of the stuff that I want to tackle:

• Manage common actions done by hook scripts with a UI
• Plugin system for custom server actions. Basically custom dlls that are usually done with hook scripts, but done with plugins instead
• Enabling and configuring SSH on the server for svn+ssh:// protocols
• Enabling and configuring SASL security
• Downloading and installation of a Subversion distribution, ie Tigris, CollabNet, and SlikSVN
• Editing and syntax-hilighting for already existing hook scripts
• Create a better backup experience for repositories.

This is a lot of work for a single person, but it should keep me busy.

The current codebase for Text File Splitter has reached the point where it is too hard to maintain. About 90% of the new feature requests are non-trivial to implement, and I decided to rewrite it instead. I use this new code base for both Text File Splitter and the new Text File Mechanic.

This means that there will not be any updates until I release 2.0. Version 1.5.1 will be the last release under the current codebase.

Text File Splitter 2.0

• Separate executables for the UI and Console apps
• UI will have a text box that will give you the command-line to use for the current UI selections.
• Automatic detection of file encoding
• Very simple action system (Actual scripting in Text File Mechanic)

Text File Mechanic will be a paid app, but it will only be $9.95. I'm hoping that this is low enough that it will become an impulse buy.

I just discovered that there have been people that have sent feedback, which I haven't seen until today. I'm talking about the feedback form on the About page. I'm mortified to say the least!

I want to apologize to all the people who have sent feedback, and did not receive any acknowledgment from me. I have not been ignoring you!

I just fixed the SMTP settings for this website, and that's how I found out that there was quite a few requests in the queue. It appears that this functionality was broken for a long time.

I'm working on creating a better user experience for feedback to all my products.

Subversion 1.6.6 is now out in the wild. You can get it here:

http://www.open.collab.net/downloads/subversion/

You need to create an account in order to get this download.